Fly Tying Materials: How to Dye Feathers and Skins

constantly amazed at the seemingly endless wealth of information, tips and tricks handed out freely by Master Davie, here’s a little gem how-to video on dying your own tying materials.
simple, inexpensive and easy, this might just be the trick to get the right colors to suit your needs, specially if you’re having difficulties acquiring materials that are both of good quality and dyed properly.
doing this yourself of course offers the possibility to test and produce mixes of tones, tints and shades that aren’t commercially available. Davie shows us below how to mix yellow and red to get a nice juicy Sunburst orange and the creative dyer can be inspired by using a color wheel chart to mix primary and secondary colors at will.
the possibilities are endless…

note as well, that the dying process can be done in successive steps giving the possibility to have several tones on the same material.
keep in mind that the lighter fibers will take to the new dye easier and faster than the darker ones. so, to get multiple colors start by fixing the first color with vinegar, rinse and continue the process in an other color. do tests on a few feathers or a small patch first !

many other types of dyes will work equally well but the world standard and easily available ones are distributed by Veniard.
they offer their own color chart to make selection easy.
enjoy !